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Canticum Canticorum Salomonis 'The Song of Songs'

Introduction

When in 1584 the Roman printer Alessandro Gardano brought out Motettorum Quinque Vocibus LIBER QUARTUS there was no mention on the title page that the contents were drawn entirely from what the Latin Bible calls Canticum Canticorum. In his dedication Palestrina follows his apology with this resolution: ‘But as what is past cannot be altered nor deeds undone, I have changed my purpose’. Recently, he explains, he had laboured upon poems ‘written of the praises of our Lord Jesus Christ and His most Holy Mother the Virgin Mary’ (a reference to his Madrigali spirituali of 1581), and now upon poems containing the divine love of Christ and His spouse the soul, indeed the ‘Songs of Solomon’ (Salomonis nimirum cantica). In the numerous later editions from 1587 to 1613, the title pages become more explicit, with phrases like motettorum ex canticis Salomonis or ex cantico canticarum (sic).

There are indications of haste in the first printing. The tenor and bass part-books are dated 1583, the other three 1584. There are a few obvious errors and omissions in this original set. We may assume publication early in 1584, perhaps to meet a special demand. For these are not thinly disguised erotic madrigals that happen to be in Latin, nor are they liturgical motets. They are exactly what Palestrina said they were, and precisely what suited the private and public devotional gatherings of people encouraged most notably by St Philip Neri, a man of extraordinary influence who had transformed religious and cultural life in Rome since the early 1560s. Under his persuasion confraternities were formed for the practice of spiritual exercises. Laudi spirituali were revived and madrigali spirituali became a popular musical genre. Indeed, Palestrina was a founder member of the Compagnia de i Musici di Roma dedicated to St Cecilia, begun in 1584. Bringing out his Song of Songs collection just in time may well have been Palestrina’s inaugural contribution.

By dedicating the set to his patron and employer Gregory XIII, Palestrina not only followed convention but honoured a reforming Pope who had supported him in his post as master of the Julian Chapel Choir, who had commissioned him (with Zoilo) to revise and reform the Roman chant books, and who had continued to keep Palestrina in his private chapel as an unofficial Papal composer.

There is every reason to believe that the earliest performances would have been by Palestrina’s small group of colleagues, adult male singers of the Papal choirs, the Julian in particular. Palestrina’s twenty-nine motets are vocal chamber music with a wide appeal that was recognized in his own time. The eleven editions in part-books are testimony to the popularity that Palestrina clearly expected. He may not have been a hypocrite but he was no fool in his business dealings or his publishing acumen. His Song of Songs was eminently suitable then, as it is now, for every kind of small singing group from male-voice soloists to mixed voices in small choirs, in low- or high-pitch performance.

Our modern age can hardly avoid some cynicism in regard to the traditional Jewish and Christian allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs: the texts clearly evolved from the love poetry of desert people, from cult-mythology and tribal wedding songs. But the Songs must be seen, and the music heard, in the context of an age of Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation fervour, an age devoted by Roman authority to the triumph of the Virgin as well as her tenderness. The Spouse of the allegory is not only the Church or the individual soul but the bride who is represented by Our Lady the Mediator and by the Queen of Heaven, the One arrayed for battle, even the woman of the Apocalypse; certainly to Palestrina’s contemporaries, the Virgin who won the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and for whom the Papacy instituted the Feast of Our Lady of Victory. The gentle enclosed garden of Virginity is balanced by the Catholic vision of triumph over evil; in the words of the Spaniard, Luis de Leon: ‘Virgin, arrayed in the sun, crowned with eternal stars, who walks her sacred feet upon the moon’. Fray Luis wrote his poems in 1572 when he was imprisoned for translating the Canticum Canticorum into Spanish. St Teresa of Avila had to burn her Meditation on the Song of Songs. It seemed to the authorities that the allegory could be preserved in the Latin but that the eroticism would prevail in the vernacular.

Although some have thought to impose a story-line upon Palestrina’s twenty-nine motets, with a narrative continuum between Bride, Bridegroom and Chorus, there is little evidence that the composer has attempted this at all. He rarely even observes these exchanges, nor does he characterize or dramatize the persons or events. His selection and division of the texts ignores what we see in modern editions of the Bible. In fact Palestrina was working from the Latin Bible prior to the Biblia Vulgata revision of 1592. This also accounts for some variants in the Latin text as set by Palestrina.

'One of Palestrina's most sublime and expressive works … an excellently balanced and natural-sounding recording' (The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs)'this bargain price release is welcome indeed and very enjoyable' (Early Music Forum of Scotland News, Scotland)» More

Draw me along after thee: we will run
in the allure of thine ointments.
The king has brought me into his chambers.
We will be glad and rejoice in thee,
remembering thy breasts more than wine.
The righteous love thee.

Draw me along after thee: we will run
in the allure of thine ointments.
The king has brought me into his chambers.
We will be glad and rejoice in thee,
remembering thy breasts more than wine.
The righteous love thee.

I am black but beautiful, a daughter of Jerusalem,
black as the tents of Kedar and the curtains of Solomon.
Do not think of me that I am dark,
for the sun hath changed my colour.
My mother’s sons have fought against me
and put me to mind the vineyards.

I am black but beautiful, a daughter of Jerusalem,
black as the tents of Kedar and the curtains of Solomon.
Do not think of me that I am dark,
for the sun hath changed my colour.
My mother’s sons have fought against me
and put me to mind the vineyards.

I am black but beautiful, a daughter of Jerusalem,
black as the tents of Kedar and the curtains of Solomon.
Do not think of me that I am dark,
for the sun hath changed my colour.
My mother’s sons have fought against me
and put me to mind the vineyards.

A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me;
He shall abide betwixt my breasts. My
love is to me a grove of cypress in the vineyards of Engaddi.
Behold thou art fair, O my love;
behold thou art fair. Thine eyes are those of doves.

A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me;
He shall abide betwixt my breasts. My
love is to me a grove of cypress in the vineyards of Engaddi.
Behold thou art fair, O my love;
behold thou art fair. Thine eyes are those of doves.

All fair thou art, my love,
there is no fault in thee. Come forth
from Lebanon, my bride, come from Lebanon,
come, thou shalt be crowned. Come from the peak of
Amana, from the heights of Sanir and Hermon, from
the lairs of lions and the mountains of the leopards.

All fair thou art, my love,
there is no fault in thee. Come forth
from Lebanon, my bride, come from Lebanon,
come, thou shalt be crowned. Come from the peak of
Amana, from the heights of Sanir and Hermon, from
the lairs of lions and the mountains of the leopards.

Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my bride;
thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes,
and with one hair of thy neck.
How beautiful are thy breasts,
my sister, my bride. Thy breasts
are more beautiful than wine, and the fragrance of thy scent
is above all perfumes.

Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my bride;
thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes,
and with one hair of thy neck.
How beautiful are thy breasts,
my sister, my bride. Thy breasts
are more beautiful than wine, and the fragrance of thy scent
is above all perfumes.

As the lily among the thorns,
so is my love among the maidens.
As the apple tree among the woods,
so is my beloved among young men.
I sat beneath the shadows of him whom I desired,
and his fruit was sweet to my tongue.

As the lily among the thorns,
so is my love among the maidens.
As the apple tree among the woods,
so is my beloved among young men.
I sat beneath the shadows of him whom I desired,
and his fruit was sweet to my tongue.

His left hand is under my head,
and his right hand shall embrace me.
I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
by the roes and the harts of the fields,
that you do not arouse nor awaken the beloved,
until she herself shall please.

His left hand is under my head,
and his right hand shall embrace me.
I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
by the roes and the harts of the fields,
that you do not arouse nor awaken the beloved,
until she herself shall please.

The voice, the voice of my beloved!
Behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains,
skipping over the hills.
My beloved is like a roe, or as a young fawn.
Lo, he standeth at our parapet;
he looketh through the window,
gazing through the lattices.
Behold, my beloved speaketh to me.

The voice, the voice of my beloved!
Behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains,
skipping over the hills.
My beloved is like a roe, or as a young fawn.
Lo, he standeth at our parapet;
he looketh through the window,
gazing through the lattices.
Behold, my beloved speaketh to me.

Rise up, make haste, my love, my dove,
my fair one, and come.
For lo, the rain is over and gone.
The flowers have appeared in our fields.
The time of pruning is come,
the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land.
The fig tree hath put forth its fruit,
and the flowering of the vine gives out its scent.

Rise up, make haste, my love, my dove,
my fair one, and come.
For lo, the rain is over and gone.
The flowers have appeared in our fields.
The time of pruning is come,
the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land.
The fig tree hath put forth its fruit,
and the flowering of the vine gives out its scent.

Arise, my love, my beauteous one, and come.
My dove, in the clefts of the rock,
in the hollow of the cliff, show me thy face;
let thy voice sound in my ears:
for sweet is thy voice, and thy face is comely.

Arise, my love, my beauteous one, and come.
My dove, in the clefts of the rock,
in the hollow of the cliff, show me thy face;
let thy voice sound in my ears:
for sweet is thy voice, and thy face is comely.

Arise, my love, my beauteous one, and come.
My dove, in the clefts of the rock,
in the hollow of the cliff, show me thy face;
let thy voice sound in my ears:
for sweet is thy voice, and thy face is comely.

My beloved is mine, and I his,
who feedeth among the lilies till the day doth break
and the shadows fall.
Return, my love, be like a roe,
or to a young hart upon the mountains of Bethel.
In my bed at night,
I sought him whom my soul doth love;
I sought him and I found him not.

My beloved is mine, and I his,
who feedeth among the lilies till the day doth break
and the shadows fall.
Return, my love, be like a roe,
or to a young hart upon the mountains of Bethel.
In my bed at night,
I sought him whom my soul doth love;
I sought him and I found him not.

I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem,
if you find my beloved,
that you tell him I languish with love.
What is thy beloved more than another,
O thou most beautiful of women?
What is thy loved one above another,
that you so charge us?
My beloved is white and ruddy,
one chosen from thousands.

I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem,
if you find my beloved,
that you tell him I languish with love.
What is thy beloved more than another,
O thou most beautiful of women?
What is thy loved one above another,
that you so charge us?
My beloved is white and ruddy,
one chosen from thousands.

How beautiful are thy sandalled feet,
O daughter of princes!
The joints of thy thighs
are like jewels made by the hand of craftsmen.
Thy navel is like a rounded bowl
never without cups.
Thy belly is like a heap of wheat
set about with lilies.

How beautiful are thy sandalled feet,
O daughter of princes!
The joints of thy thighs
are like jewels made by the hand of craftsmen.
Thy navel is like a rounded bowl
never without cups.
Thy belly is like a heap of wheat
set about with lilies.

Thy breasts are like two fawns, roes that are twins.
Thy nose is as a tower of ivory.
Thine eyes are like the pools in Hesebon,
which are at the Gate of the Daughter of the Multitude.
Thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon
that looks towards Damascus.
Thy head is like Carmel, and the hair of thy head
is as royal purple braided in strands.

Thy breasts are like two fawns, roes that are twins.
Thy nose is as a tower of ivory.
Thine eyes are like the pools in Hesebon,
which are at the Gate of the Daughter of the Multitude.
Thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon
that looks towards Damascus.
Thy head is like Carmel, and the hair of thy head
is as royal purple braided in strands.

Thy breasts are like two fawns, roes that are twins.
Thy nose is as a tower of ivory.
Thine eyes are like the pools in Hesebon,
which are at the Gate of the Daughter of the Multitude.
Thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon
that looks towards Damascus.
Thy head is like Carmel, and the hair of thy head
is as royal purple braided in strands.

How beautiful art thou, and how comely,
my dearest, in delights!
Thy stature is like to a palm tree
and thy breasts to clusters of fruit.
I said: I will go up into the palm tree
and I will take hold of the fruit thereof.
And thy breasts also shall be as the clusters of the vine;
and the odour of thy mouth like apples.

How beautiful art thou, and how comely,
my dearest, in delights!
Thy stature is like to a palm tree
and thy breasts to clusters of fruit.
I said: I will go up into the palm tree
and I will take hold of the fruit thereof.
And thy breasts also shall be as the clusters of the vine;
and the odour of thy mouth like apples.

Come, my beloved; let us go forth
into the fields, let us abide in the villages.
Let us arise and go early to the vineyards,
let us see if the vines flourish,
if the blossom be ready to bring forth fruits,
if the pomegranates are in flower.
There will I give thee my breasts.

Come, my beloved; let us go forth
into the fields, let us abide in the villages.
Let us arise and go early to the vineyards,
let us see if the vines flourish,
if the blossom be ready to bring forth fruits,
if the pomegranates are in flower.
There will I give thee my breasts.